When I walked out of the house at 5:30 this morning, the big Blue Moon was casting shadows in my driveway.  I looked up and said “Good Morning Moon.”

As I drove up the Garden State Parkway, the moon was right outside of my window, over my shoulder.  Every time I looked to the left, there it was.   It was following me to work.

I had a vivid flashback of a time when I was around 6 years old.  We were driving home from a party late at night.  My mom and dad in the front of the car, my brother and I in the back. The windows were rolled down, and the summer wind was blowing my hair around.

I said, “Look! The full moon!”  And then a few minutes later I realized that the moon was still there.

“There’s the moon again. How come we didn’t drive away from it?  Why is it still right there?”

“It’s following you.”  My dad said.  “The moon follows you.  It will follow you all the way home.”

“Really, Daddy? Really!?”

“Yes, really.  When we get home, it will be there.”

And when we got home it was there.  The moon had followed me home.  I sat by my window gazing out at the moon for what felt like hours before falling asleep.

Many nights I stared out of the car window at that moon, making sure it was still following me.

It always was.

At some point in time, I learned the truth of course. I figured out that the moon wasn’t really following me.  I realized that things are not always as the seem.  I wasn’t angry with my dad for telling me a lie.  Not at all.  I didn’t resent the fact that he had been feeding me a line of crap.  He hadn’t really been lying to me. He was just telling me a sweet story.   It filled me with wonder. It made me feel important.  It was a sweet story that I really wanted to believe.  And for a while I did believe it.

There are so many things that I believed as a child that I no longer believe. I am also certain that there are things I believe today that I won’t believe when I’m older and grayer. I believe what I want to believe, when I need to believe it.  Even the truth can change.

And although I know it can’t possibly be true, I’m sure that the moon followed me to work today.